marionette simple event delegation - backbone.js

Question

I am trying to add a simple event to the children under my compositeview but it is not triggering at all..and frankly I am not sure why, it seems so simple, I could do this just fine with normal backbone.view.
In the example below, the alert is not triggered at all, however when I purposefully change the function name the event binds to , to something else that doesnt exist, it complaints that the function doesnt exist, so I think it's something else...help?
App.View.ContentContainer = Backbone.Marionette.CollectionView.extend({
className:'content_container',
itemView:App.View.ContentBrowseItem,
events:{
'click .browse_item':'focus_content'
},
initialize:function () {
//this.views = {} //indexed by id
//this.create_modal_container()
var coll = this.collection
coll.calculate_size()
coll.sort_by('title', -1)
},
focus_content:function (e) {
alert('here???')
var $modal_container = this.$modal_container
var content_id = $(e.currentTarget).data('content-id')
var $selected_view = this.views[content_id]
var $focused_content = new App.View.FocusedItem({model:$selected_view.model})
$modal_container.empty().show().append($focused_content.el).reveal().bind('reveal:close', function () {
$focused_content.close()
})
return false
},
onShow:function(){
this.$el.addClass('content_container').isotope({
selector:'.content_item',
resizable:true,
layoutMode:'masonry',
masonry:{ columnWidth:64 }
})
}
EDIT: this is the resulting HTML: http://pastebin.com/uW2X8iPp the div.content_container is the resulting el of App.View.ContentContainer

Answer 1

Is .browse_item a selector for the App.View.ContentBrowseItem itemView element? In that case, you need to bind the event in the ItemView definition, not in the CollectionView definition. The reason is that events are bound when a view is rendered. The CollectionView itself is rendered before any of its child itemViews.
Also, if you are opening up another modal view on this click event, I would let the app handle that, rather than your CollectionView
Try something like this:
App.View.ContentBrowseItem = Backbone.Marionette.ItemView.extend({
...
initialize: function() {
// Maintain context on event handlers
_.bindAll(this, "selectItem")
},
events: {
"click" : "selectItem"
}
selectItem: function() {
App.vent.trigger("item:select", this.model);
}
...
});
And to actually show the modal detail view:
App.vent.on("item:select", function(itemModel) {
var detailView = new App.View.FocusedItem({ model: itemModel });
// You may also want to create a region for your modal container.
// It might simplify some of your `$modal_container.empty().show().append(..).etc().etc()
App.modalRegion.show(detailView);
});
Allowing each of your views to handle their own events is part of what makes Backbone and Marionette so beautiful. You'll just want to avoid one view getting all up in another view's business (eg. a CollectionView trying to handle its ItemView's events, an ItemView creating event bindings to show and close a separate modal view, etc.)
Hope this helps!